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Fall Vegetable Gardening
Theres lots more you can be doing to extend your harvest right up to the bitter end and, dare I say, heavy frost. It seems rather ludicrous in the midst of a wicked summer heat wave to be planning for cooler fall gardens but this is exactly what I want you to consider.
Small Works
To begin with, as my gardens prove, you dont have to have a huge area to sow a few vegetables.
Integrated Gardens
At a visit to fellow garden writer - Marj Mason Hogues garden a month ago - I saw how she had incorporated her vegetables right into her flower beds and managed to make it all look rather stunning.
You can tuck a few attractive chard plants here and there and with their red stems and bright green leaves, they are quite pretty plants.
The darker red leaves of some lettuce are also attractive in their own right.
Just because you dont have a so-called "vegetable garden does not restrict you from having a few fresh vegetables and herbs to enjoy during our fall vegetable gardening season in your very own potager garden.
Fresh Salad Greens
If you like fresh salad greens, these plants are perfect for a fall vegetable gardening project. In fact, if you want to save a few bucks, what youll spend on salad greens in the grocery store next week will easily purchase enough seeds to feed you all fall from a very small garden space.
And seeds are your avenue for success.
Growing
Youll want to firm the areas (gently) you have chosen to grow your fall salads.
Scatter seed so that the seeds are two to three inches apart on that firmed soil. Then barely cover the seed so wandering birds cant enjoy it but do not bury it deeply.
Keep the area moist and in a week or so, youll see tiny shoots emerging. Grow these shoots (a little organic fish emulsion fertilizer works wonders here) until they are just touching each other and then start thinning the smaller ones out.
Eat the thinnings, youll find they are very tender and tasty. Grow the larger plants until they touch again and thin again. Eat the thinnings. See the pattern? This is easy gardening in our fall vegetable gardening project.
When youre left with one or perhaps two plants in that area, you can either harvest individual leaves off the plants or harvest the entire plant for a salad all by itself.
What Can You Plant in the Fall Vegetable Garden?
What about lettuce. There are a lot of very good coloured leaf varieties available such as Red Sails, Ruby and even Salad Bowl Romaine lettuce handles the cold temperatures really well and you might look for Rouge dHiver or Freckles to combine colour and cold tolerance.
Then you might want to add a few really tough plants such as North Pole, Arctic King or Winter Marvel all lettuce that will handle very cool temperatures and keep on producing.
Kale
Quite a few gardeners think that Kale tastes better once it has been heavily frosted. Again, there is a wide variety of kale leaf colours to pick from. And yes, you can eat the fancy varieties that are sold as bedding plants.
If you want attractive Kale plants, try one of the Redbor names, you wont go wrong. I note that traditional kale leaves with their blue tones are attractive when planted next to red leaf lettuce.
If youre planting kale, then you had better plan on growing Swiss chard as well. This is the undisputed queen of the cold weather salad crop in our fall vegetable gardening efforts. Grow a variety such as Bright Lights; this variety has a mix of colours in the ribs of the plant that will really brighten up the garden. Youll easily find some of the red-ribbed varieties on seed racks so do plan to add this plant to your fall garden.
Do you have a question about Fall Vegetable Gardening?
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